


The One with the Honesty

by xpityx



Series: Witcher Fics [8]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22290079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpityx/pseuds/xpityx
Summary: “Ah, what dire threats did my daughter send your way I wonder?” Emhyr asked.“She just—she’s pretty convincing,” Geralt replied lamely.
Relationships: Emhyr var Emreis/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Series: Witcher Fics [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1732639
Comments: 37
Kudos: 581





	The One with the Honesty

**Author's Note:**

> It's my birthday today so please have some ridiculous mush in celebration. Thank you to [Merulanoir](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/merulanoir/pseuds/merulanoir) for beta'ing and enjoy!

Emhyr had been living in Toussaint for four months before Geralt got round to visiting. Ciri had been sending him increasingly long letters asking him to check in on the former Emperor but, well, Geralt had been busy. 

Also, he realised as he stepped into Emhyr’s study, he had no idea what he was supposed to say. Mererid hovered at his shoulder and leant down to whisper something in Emhyr’s ear while another servant stood nearby, holding what looked like letters for him to sign. Emhyr finished with the one in front of him before gesturing for his attendants to leave. 

“Ah, what dire threats did my daughter send your way I wonder?” Emhyr asked, once the servants had withdrawn.

“She just—she’s pretty convincing,” Geralt replied lamely. He should have left it long enough for her to get to threats. 

Emhyr raised a dark eyebrow.

“She’s Empress of the entire continent, I have to do what she says,” Geralt added, trying to sound firm and possibly failing. 

Emhyr huffed what might have been a laugh for another person, getting up and going to a sideboard laden with drink.

“Red or white?” he asked.

“Er, red,” Geralt replied, not quite believing he was about to be served wine by Emhyr var Emreis. 

Even with the added fortitude of a very fine Toussaint red, Geralt only managed an hour before he made his excuses and left. His one consolation was that Emhyr looked equally relieved to have him gone. Geralt swore to himself he would hold out a year next time. 

  
  
  
  


As it turned out, he was back within the month. 

“So you bought the plot of land next to yours?”

“That is correct, yes,” Emhyr turned a page of the book he was reading instead of paying any attention to Geralt.

“And there’s a wyvern on it?”

“Yes.”

“Did someone survey they land before you bought it?”

“Yes.” 

“And this person didn’t notice the fifteen foot flying lizard?”

“Evidently not.”

Emhyr turned another page and Geralt gave up. There was obviously something going on, but as he was pretty certain that it wasn’t some sort of trap he decided he’d rather face the giant, poison-spitting monster than try to unravel whatever scheme Emhyr was hatching. 

Six months and one cursed book, a drowner infestation, and  _ another _ wyvern later Geralt was starting to think that perhaps it was fate. He’d given in to Emhyr’s polite offer for him to stay after he’d gotten rid of that month’s threat some time ago, and now every time he found himself at the former Emperor’s residence he stayed for at least some food. Occasionally he and Emhyr would play cards, which Emhyr would inevitably win—even when Geralt cheated by stealing half the cards. It was pleasant. 

Usually once Geralt had finished killing whatever needed to be killed everyone made it very clear that the best thing for him to do would be to leave. Being invited for good food and better wine was something he could say no to only so many times. Plus, Ciri would be delighted to know he was minding her for once and checking on Emhyr, who seemed to be settling in to retirement. Well, if one ignored the myriad of monsters he seemed to attract.

  
  
  
  


“Is there any particular reason you decided to handle a load of ancients objects of unknown origin?” 

“I was bored,” Emhyr replied, then took a sharp breath through his nose as if in surprise.

Geralt hadn’t been expecting an answer at all, let alone one so frank.

“You know, Mererid was a little vague on the details of the curse when he came to fetch me, except to say you weren’t dying—what exactly are the effects?”

“Honesty,” Emhyr gritted out. 

Geralt didn’t know what would happen if he laughed, but Emhyr looked so miserably angry that he decided not to chance it. 

“Okay,” he said, retreating into professionalism, “what did you touch in the hours before the curse took hold?”

Geralt put on a thin pair of leather gloves while Emhyr talked him through his movements of the last day. It was unlikely that a diminished Elven curse would have much effect on him—as that’s what it seemed to be—but he equally did not want to experience the outcome of  _ both _ of them telling each other the unvarnished truth. 

Geralt narrowed it down to a small box, inlaid with mother of pearl, that played a haunting tune when it was opened; a sheaf of crumbling parchments where the ink had faded to nothing; and a stone marker that Emhyr had ordered moved from the new rose garden. 

Emhyr had spoken as little as possible, answering questions with only a word or two. 

“Well, I think I have a book in my library that says something on the origins of this kind of curse. They’re pretty rare, I’ve only ever heard of one other, but the way they are cast is pretty specific.” Geralt stood, adding, “it’ll take me less than an hour to ride there and back. Try not to get any more cursed in the meanwhile, eh?”

“Send someone for it,” Emhyr ordered. 

Geralt hesitated, looking up at him quizzically.

“I’d rather you didn’t leave,” Emhyr told a point on the wall some ten feet to Geralt’s left.

Geralt slowly sank back into his seat. On one hand he didn’t want to make this worse for Emhyr, but on the other he didn’t want to be summarily executed when all this was over.

Emhyr called Mererid back in and Geralt gave him exact instructions as to what book should return with. He took being ordered to ride to Corvo Bianco and back for the second time with as much grace as Geralt expected. Then they were alone again. Emhyr studied the rug with apparent interest and a clock ticked steadily out in the hallway. 

“Well, nice weather we’re having?” Geralt tried.

“I worry about Cirilla, that there is some danger to her that I have neither foreseen or prepared her for.” 

He stared at Emhyr who had clenched his jaw so tightly it looked like it might shatter. Geralt took a breath and made this better the only way he knew how. 

“I worry about her as well,” he confessed, “I have nightmares about every close shave we ever had, and every time I do I’m always just a moment too late, or I look right instead of left, and then she’s gone.”

Emhyr looked him in the eyes for the first time all evening.

“I wish you would grow your hair a little longer, the half tail becomes you.”

Geralt was blushing, he knew he was: somewhere between flattered and mortified. 

“I’ve made you laugh eight times,” he confided, not even aware he’d been counting until the words came to him.

“Your company is a relief I had never expected, and one I undoubtedly do not deserve, but I will continue to arrange events so that you are by my side as often as I can.”

Geralt looked away at that. When he was able to look back, he wasn’t even sure what would come out of his mouth until he started speaking. 

“I didn’t know how much I cared until Mererid came to get me this morning, telling me that you had been cursed.”

“I know what I want, but I don’t know how to begin,” Emhyr confessed in and rush then gasped, leaning forward so that his hair fell from behind his ears, untidily. “It is undone,” he added and Geralt sat frozen, unsure what he should do. 

“Leave me,” Emhyr ordered into the fraught silence and, after a moment, Geralt got up and did exactly that. 

  
  
  
  


Three months went by, with Geralt trying very hard to concentrate on other things. He also stopped cutting his hair, which was as good an indication as any as to how well the ‘don’t think about Emhyr’ plan was going. He didn’t mention the curse to anyone, only writing about it in general terms in a journal he kept for documenting such oddities. He hoped that one day the book might sit in Ciri’s library. He was also determinedly not thinking about the sudden lack of monsters in and around Emhyr’s estate. He wondered where one even _ found _ two wyverns.

There were plenty of monsters elsewhere to keep him busy: a nest of ghouls were uncovered to the north of Lyran, where new aqueducts were being dug. Then, three weeks later, some idiot on the same project had the bright idea of moving grave markers but not bothering to move the bodies. Six workers died before the overseer admitted what he’d done. 

Geralt arrived back at Corvo Bianco covered from head to toe in grave dirt and stinking so badly that even Roach had given him a mournful look when he’d gotten back to her.

“Ah, er,” BB started when Geralt walked in the front door.

“Just spit it out,” Geralt sighed.

“His Royal Highness, Emhyr var Emreis is waiting for you in the sitting room.”

“Of course he is.” 

Geralt wasn’t sure why he was even surprised. 

  
  


Emhyr blinked, casting a quick look over Geralt as he entered the sitting room. He’d done what he could with the towel BB had provided: he’d gotten most of the wet stuff off his armour, but anything that had dried was staying until he had soaked in a bath for a while. 

“Emhyr?” Geralt asked, when Emhyr failed to say anything, “is everything okay? Because if you’ve found another wyvern then it’s going to have to wait.”

“No, there are no further monsters for you to deal with,” Emhyr replied, then seemed to run out of words.

_ I know what I want, but I don’t know how to begin. _

Geralt realised that maybe Emhyr didn’t have to be the one to take that first step—that perhaps that task of bridging the gap of silence that had grown up between them over the last three months was something Geralt could do. That it was something he wanted to do.

“I’m going to get a bath,” he said, turning to go up to his room, “come on, you can help me with my hair seeing as I grew out it for you.”

Geralt grinned to himself as he made his way up the stairs, Emhyr just a step behind him.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on [Tumblr](https://xpityx.tumblr.com), but if you're just looking for writing updates then I use my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xpityxfanfic) for those.


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